Opto Rolls Out Private Market Fund Strategies For Advisors

Opto Investments announced that it has enhanced its offerings to include custom-built fund strategies that advisors can use for investors looking to gain access to the private markets. 

The New York-based firm can create products along a variety of themes, including growth, balance, value, or others, Opto CEO Ryan VanGorder said.

"This new offering enables RIAs to efficiently create, execute, and manage custom fund strategies to address the unique needs of their high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients," the firm said in a press release.

Opto executes a due diligence process on the funds it offers on its platform, he added.

“We’re only investing in funds that we believe are stellar and have good performance opportunities based on their historical performance,” VanGorder said.

Opto will work in consultation with advisors to determine the ideal funds to meet the specific needs of the advisors on behalf of their clients, he said.

“If they decided that across their books there’s an archetype of clients that needs something that looks like a growth portfolio, they’ll construct that with us and then they’ll allocate that across multiple clients in their book,” VanGorder said. 

The service acts in a similar manner to a white label service in that all the work Opto does is behind the scenes, inluding the management of the funds, he said. The advisor is free to label the funds with their name and not include Opto’s name, he said.

For custom funds, advisors will need to secure a minimum of $25 million across their clients, he said. The firm offers an a la carte option with a $100,000 minimum for advisors who want to create a fund tailored to a specific client, he said.

Opto is offering educational tools to help advisors improve on their knowledge about the private markets and in their conversations with clients about them, according to the firm. 

“The private markets are inefficient and one of the things we want to do is add effeciency into the private markets alongside provding top-tier access to funds that are hard to access as well as be aligned with advisors,” VanGorder said.